


The Stylist

by chavalah



Series: The District 12 Team [3]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 23:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3466391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chavalah/pseuds/chavalah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adult members of the team reflect on Katniss and Peeta at specific points during "Catching Fire."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stylist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jae/gifts).



> Set right before the start of the Quarter Quell

For someone who has worked so closely to the monstrosity of the Hunger Games, he isn’t quite sure how to handle the certainty of his own death. Granted, he had been playing a very different sort of game against the Capitol, but in order for the Mockingjay to get noticed, someone had to take the fall. For once, it would be a member of the team, and not the tribute herself.

He’d known there was something special about Katniss Everdeen since the moment he watched the broadcast of her volunteering for the Games. You don’t rise up the ranks of fashion in the Capitol without noticing who can be molded into the next big thing, so he volunteered himself to become her stylist, a role his that his predecessor, who had been sending D12 tributes to their deaths for years, was happy to relinquish. Of course, in order for the Mockingjay to work as a symbol of the rebellion, Katniss would have to survive her first Games. Cinna did the best that he could to ensure her success as the Girl on Fire, and he got a greater feat than he thought imaginable with the Star-Crossed Lovers. The Mockingjay is now a voice for the people; she loves them and will not leave them to die.

Finally, a his own game, once just a minor spy for 13, is coming to a head. Like prophets of old he would not set foot in this new promised land, but the Mockingjay, his fiery, electric creation, would lead the people there. It’s what he holds onto now that he’s publicly defied Snow’s government with his interview dress, now that his days are numbered. He’s already completed his designs for the Mockingjay to wear into revolution; now all that remains is sending her off into the Quell.

Yet, as he seals the pin to her jumpsuit, he suddenly doesn’t see the Mockingjay, but Katniss—the girl who donned his dresses of fire but now looks at him with trembling eyes; the girl he made designs for because she refused to share her own talents with the Capitol; the girl who first trusted him because he refused to pander to the farce that the Games were an honor. He is now ultimately sending her into a fight beyond her comprehension, but like him, Katniss is someone who lives beyond herself. He knows, in what might be his final hours, that she will ultimately accept the role he crafted for her, the role she inspired herself with her token, and become the Mockingjay.

But for now, he keeps it simple, with a kiss on her forehead. “I’m still betting on you.”


End file.
